Photos: Casper, The Dreamery
Need a nap? Casper opened a store for that
Last week, Casper, the bed-in-box brand, opened The Dreamery in lower Manhattan, a lounge where consumers pay $25 for a 45-minute nap.
Each of the nine curtained nap “nooks” is equipped with a Casper bed and furnishings, as well as Sunday Riley face wash, pajamas from high-end sleepwear brand Sleepy Jones, toothbrushes and toothpaste from Hello and audio tracks from Headspace.
Nap sessions are booked through a Casper micro-site, as well as the ClassPass and MindBody apps. Walk-ins are also accepted. Post-nap, private washrooms are available to freshen up as well as complementary coffee in the lounge area.
The Dreamery is designed to spark conversations about the importance of sleep, including midday breaks. Casper also believes The Dreamery fills a consumer need as a company survey showed that people want places to nap or unwind for short periods and can find few options available.
“The Dreamery is about making sleep and rest a part of our regular wellness routines — similar to how many people prioritize a workout class,” Casper co-founder and COO Neil Parikh said in the statement. ”The concept enables us to pilot new ways of bringing better sleep to more people and to more places — whether that’s here, the workplace, airports or beyond.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BlOKJOBHP7L/?hl=en&taken-by=casper
The concept also allows consumers to test Casper’s mattresses and customer service. No product is for sale, but a Casper store is next door.
Founded in 2014 exclusively online, Casper began moving into brick & mortar in a 2014 partnership with West Elm. Last year, it began selling mattresses and bedding products inside Target after the giant discounter made a minority investment in the bedding upstart. While exploring pop-ups in recent years, Casper now has 18 stores across the country. Most offer free trials of Casper mattresses for between 15 to 30 minutes. The ideal sleep time without waking up groggy is said to be 45 minutes.
Casper indicated it is exploring bringing The Dreamery to other cities, college campuses, airports and workplaces, and hopes entrepreneurs open similar concepts globally to promote the merits of sleep. Jeff Brooks, CMO of Casper, told Adweek, “We see this as a highly scalable concept.”
- The Dreamery
- Casper Debuts The Dreamery in NYC, a Lounge Where You Can Pay to Take a Nap – Adweek
- Casper opens a storefront for $25 naps – TechCrunch
- Casper Is Opening a Nap Store – Racked
- Casper Brings Sleep to a Whole New Level With ‘The Dreamery’ – INC
- You’re Not Dreaming: Casper is Coming to Target – Target
- Introducing the Casper Essential Mattress—Casper-Quality Comfort at an Unbeatable Price – Target
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: How would you rate the expansion potential of The Dreamery concept? Do you see The Dreamery working largely as a marketing and educational vehicle for Casper or as a standalone concept on its own?
Poll
BrainTrust
Jennifer McDermott
Consumer Advocate, finder.com
Cynthia Holcomb
Founder | CEO, Female Brain Ai & Prefeye - Preference Science Technologies Inc.
Definitely an interesting concept. Definitely pushing the envelope of omnichannel retailing and sales. If there are a selection of mattresses to test out, this could be a brilliant strategy to reduce returns (which are an expensive proposition in bedding).
This strikes me as a marketing and customer education vehicle. Although I love sleep, and am sold on the idea, I just don’t know how I would weave this into a typical business day. Regardless, I will love to hear how things work out, over time.
A quiet space to rejuvenate is too rare in busy environs. The Dreamery fits into Casper’s branding and has potential for inclusion in many world-weary locations. The key will be to deliver a suitable balance of the value of a nap and promotional messaging that can lead to conversion.
It’s a great PR move, designed to drum up some free publicity. Will that exhausted family of four take a nap during an afternoon of sightseeing? Doubtful.
Well, sleep is a luxury these days – so it is fairly easy to commercialize it! In all seriousness, I think this concept could do well, especially in airports and workplaces. That said, the need for this probably tells us that our lives are somewhat out of balance.
I think this concept has limited runway. It requires a lot of customer time and needs to be performed away from home. I don’t see many consumers opting to go through the nap experience, but maybe a quick test on a number of mattresses. This idea may be pushing the envelope of the customer experience.
Is Casper in the business of selling mattresses, or renting them for quality naps? The survey confirms common sense that people are looking for a quality place for naps and peace, However, nine nap nooks hardly seem like enough to satisfy the demand in the city that never sleeps!
One can definitely argue that The Dreamery is a total customer engagement experience. The tie-ins of other brand and sleep related products help reinforce the concept and discussion around sleep. Very useful for the Casper brand and product awareness in the short term.
However, to achieve Jeff Brook’s goal of a highly scalable concept, there has to be ways of generating incremental revenue to support The Dreamery space and staff. Given the current loss leader on “nap time,” there needs to be some analysis of what this contributes to ongoing brand building and, ultimately, growing mattress sales.
The concept is marketing and PR-oriented, and not likely to be scalable or long-lasting. They would have a better chance of utilization in an environment that needs it, such as airports (there are a few examples in Asia of short-term sleep pods for layovers). I don’t see enough of a user base for a viable economic model in a city environment.
This is a cute concept and will deliver on what I believe is the true objective, to drive media coverage, conversation and overall awareness to the Casper brand, not to meet a “consumer need” for nap spaces.
This is a very expensive, very limited way to offer customers the chance to take a nap on a Casper bed. For a large city like NYC it might make sense as a way to market and allow the public to self-educate (while minimizing returns), but offers very little else. Especially since there is a store next door that can market, educate consumers and sell mattresses, the more appropriate question might be, why wouldn’t Casper use this nap space to better enhance their marketing and sales of mattresses?
Wonderful example of the current way of thinking about the “store as media.” It’s not about selling “stuff” at this location — it’s about the experience at hand and the glow that hopefully shines on the Casper brand and resulting sales through other channels.
Retailers have to stop being just boxes on the shelf or, in the case of Casper, mattresses in a box. While you can’t make every aisle and rack an experience, retailers need to continue to work on finding creative ways to bring more experiences/excitement/involvement/community to their stores. Do something that you can’t do online and you’ll find success.
Great for creating awareness of the brand. Not so likely as a full-on concept store. For my 2 cents.
The Dreamery is a clever way to offer consumers an option to try before they buy. While it isn’t positioned as such, I see this as a direct or indirect way to test mattresses. I think the most logical location for The Dreamery concept is airports, as many travelers with longer layovers would love to have a place to get a quiet and comfortable nap. Having this concept at work locations seems a little odd, as it may have a negative perceptions of workers “sleeping on the job!”
Overall, I think the is a great marketing strategy that will result in incremental sales for Casper.
Great idea to place Dreamery shops in airports, David! Brilliant!
A great idea from a marketing perspective that generates buzz and coverage, as previously noted, and also a message that might actually pay for itself as a standalone idea, to a certain degree. I think The Dreamery concept is somewhat limited to urban settings, but who is actually saying these days that they are well-rested? On the flip side, I haven’t met many managers encouraging the mid-day nap (sleep-shaming?!). Bottom line, I think it works on both fronts.
Publicity plus … This is an excellent leverage of the brand and the product. As a standalone, one-stop sleep destination, not so much! I read the Glossy reporter’s Dreamery experience this past weekend and it sounds like a lot of work to doze off, even with a treat of Riley face wash. A great marketing and educational vehicle. Good clean fun. Might be the new facial or manicure for high-end spas?
I hate to bring up the realities of the world we live in, but in Manhattan, safety and cleanliness are always issues. How do they manage these factors without creating unsafe conditions and big legal exposure?
This is dead on — taking a product and creating an engaging experience around it. This isn’t just about buying a mattress or getting familiar with Casper; it’s about making sleep more available (and what better place to start than NYC?). If Casper puts the proper muscle into growing the movement I can see it being quite successful for them as a standalone concept and as part of the overall brand.